How To Create A Good Story
For children: Make something that happened into a story others will want to hear
Did something marvelous, amazing, weird, or funny ever happen to you? You wanted to share it, but when you did, it sounded just plain foolish?
Let’s say you were riding your bike home from school last Tuesday.
Suddenly a small airplane landed in the road in front of you. Now, nothing else happened. No terrorists with machine guns jumped out, the plane didn’t almost crash, it didn’t even almost hit you. It surprised and scared you. The pilot was just practicing landing and decided to try the country road you were biking on. You know this because you asked him. But when you tried to tell anyone about it, they said, “So what?”
By planning ahead, you can tell this story, and any others that happen to you, so that people will really listen.
First, decide why you want to share this event. What’s important about it? Did you learn something from it? Did it make you laugh or cry? The reason you’re telling the story is your purpose or theme. Maybe when the plane landed you thought, “Even on the most boring day, anything can happen!” This is your theme.
Second, think about your event’s structure. Exactly what is the beginning, middle, and end of your event? You choose a beginning, middle, and ending depending on your theme.
Let’s see how this works.
Planning Your Story
You might start this story by saying, “I was riding my bike home from school on Tuesday when an airplane landed in the road in front of me.” But since nothing else interesting happened, that would end your story before it began. Think back to your theme: “Even on the most boring day, anything can happen.” Your story begins with a boring day.
But boring days aren’t worth sharing. So you need a hook, something to catch the attention of your audience the way that wiggling worm on the hook catches the attention of a fish. You might say, “Last Tuesday seemed like a perfectly ordinary day.” This tells your audience that it only seemed ordinary—but wasn’t. They’ll have to listen to find out why it was different. They’re hooked.
Next, identify the climax of the story, the part you thought was most important or exciting. Was it that the plane landed on the road? Did you slam on the brakes and go into a skid? Did you think you were going to wipe out when you tried to avoid the plane? Maybe it was talking to the pilot. Or it might even have been watching the plane fly away again.
Next, you have to fill in the space between the hook and the climax. This is where you build up the story. You need incidents or scenes, events that happened. Each scene should be a little more exciting than the one before, with the climax topping them all.
In your story, nothing happened—it was a boring day—until the plane landed. You got excited in stages.
You were riding quietly home after an ordinary boring day.
You heard the plane getting louder and louder, closer and closer. You got curious.
The noise got so loud you had to stop the bike and cover your ears.
Then the plane came into view, just barely over the treetops.
You got scared. Would it crash? Would it hit you? Should you ride off? In which direction?
Then it landed in the road. Whew! You’re safe!
What makes this story worth telling is mostly internal. It is what happened inside you—your feelings—during this event.
Now, if the plane had landed and terrorists got out and started spraying bullets all around, that would be the climax, not the plane landing. That story is worth telling because of the external events: the events that you could see and hear.
Whether what happened is internal or external, break it into scenes, smaller bits that each describe one thing. Make each scene come alive by bringing in sense details: what you saw, smelled, felt, heard, thought, and tasted. (Not all stories will have all the senses!)
Drafting Your Story
Storytellers and writers almost always write and rewrite and rewrite their stories again. Each time, it is a draft. You might have heard the term rough draft. That’s the first version, and it’s usually not worth reading. The final draft is after the author has written it over andover, makingchanges each time. Finally, it will be as good as it is going to be. That’s the final draft.
Here’s a draft of my airplane story:
It was a crisp, clear autumn day. I had to bicycle fast to keep warm. I was thinking about what a boring day it was. Absolutely nothing interesting happened. We didn’t even have a good game at recess. Then I heard something. At first it sounded like an ordinary airplane. But it got louder and louder. Finally it got so loud I couldn’t stand it. I stopped my bike so I could cover my ears with my hands. I shivered from fright. Suddenly I saw a small plane. It was so low it almost touched the treetops. I thought it was going to crash! It might even hit me! I got back on my bike and started pedaling back the other way. The noise got louder and louder. Then suddenly it changed. I turned around. The plane had landed on the road, right in front of the place I’d been standing. I waited to see what would happen. I could smell the plane’s stinky exhaust. When nothing happened, I went over to the plane. The pilot opened the door and leand out. “Go away, kid,” he said. “I’m just practicing landing this plane and taking off again. I was looking for the county airport but got lost, and I was so low I had to land. Now I have to take off again. I don’t want to hurt you, so move far away so I can get on my way.”
I bet when you reached the end here, you felt it wasn’t finished. You wanted a better ending. To have an ending that leaves your audience happy, you need a resolution. The problem from your theme has to be solved.
Look back at your theme: “Even on the most boring day, anything can happen.” Bring your theme to the end of your story. Repeat it somehow. For example, you could say, “I pedaled back up the road to where it made a big turn and waited until I saw the plane take off. Then I started back toward home. And I realized that even on a boring day, you never know what will come next. Really, you know, anything can happen!”
Your story now has a hook to begin it, incidents to build it up, an exciting climax, and a resolution. It also has a theme.
You can use these five elements to turn any marvelous, amazing, weird, sad, or funny thing that happens into a story that others will want to hear.
For Parents, Teachers, and Others
Glossary
Climax: The most exciting or important part of a story.
Draft: Something written that needs to be fixed up before it is finished.
External: Outside. External action is things you can see.
Final draft: The last version of the story, after all the corrections and changes are done.
Hook: Something at the start of a story that catches your attention so you will keep reading.
Incident: Something that happens in the story. Sometimes called a scene.
Internal: Inside. Internal action is thoughts and feelings, not things you can see.
Purpose: A reason for something.
Resolution: The final solution to a problem or difficulty.
Rough draft: The first version of something written, with mistakes that will be corrected later.
Scene: A single piece of action in a story or movie that takes place in the same place at the same time.
Structure: Something built out of pieces that are put together to make something bigger.
Theme: The purpose or idea behind the story.
The story structure described here is the basic one used to build most fiction. It is very simple and, in my opinion, best learned in a casual way, such as telling a story to friends, rather than in a highly structured fashion resulting in a grade. In my experience, few teachers are writers and many are impressed by creativity, which can cause them to favor imaginative stories. This can result in them grading imaginative stories that wander without a plan higer than unimaginative ones with good structure. However, an unimaginative story told correctly is usually more satisfying than a highly imaginative one that meanders aimlssly.
If you are teaching story structure, it can help to share short tales and ask the listeners to point out the various parts of the story. Goldilocks and the Three Bears or The Three Little Pigs are classics that can be dissected even by children in the primary grades.
Read the story once without stopping. Ask if they think the story has a message—does it have a theme; does it teach anything? What? Write down their ideas.
Then start reading again. This time you will be focusing on the structure. Stop after the introduction. Ask what the hook is.
Read the first incident and then the second, pointing out why those are two incients. This will help your audience identify scenes. After you have pointed out the first two incidents, many children will have not problem identifying further ones.
Help them identify the climax and then discuss the resolution.
What is interesting about Goldilocks (after having examined several versions with the same weakness) is that it does not have a satisfactory resolution. Goldilocks runs away and is never seen again, and the Bear family stands around with their house in shambles and no breakfast. The lack of a satisfactory conclusion is curious. It makes this an excellent story to teach the importance of a good resolution. Ask:
Does the theme come around again at the end?
Can your audience think of ways to bring the theme in at the end?
Do any of their ideas give the story a better resolution?
All of these ideas depend on you as teacher or parent being aware of age-appropriateness. Most of the children I have worked with in grades 1 and 2 tend to be silly. Work with it! By the same token, many kids in middle and high school are very serious. Go with their strengths and interests.
For all their age-related differences, these principles are the same for all grades. Just the level of detail and the level of cohesion will vary.
If you try this and get some great little stories, please send them to me through the Comments.